CATEGORIES AND INDUCTION IN YOUNG-CHILDREN
CATEGORIES AND INDUCTION IN YOUNG-CHILDREN
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DOI：
10.1016/0010-0277(86)90034-x
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发表时间：
1986-08-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.4
通讯作者：
MARKMAN, EM
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
GELMAN, SA;MARKMAN, EM
自然类术语的主要功能之一（例如，老虎，黄金）是支持归纳推理。人们期望这些类别的成员共享重要的、不可预见的特性，如内部器官和遗传结构。此外，归纳可以在没有知觉支持的情况下进行：即使当一个对象看起来不太像它的范畴中的其他成员时，甚至当一个属性是不可观察的时。目前的工作地址如何期望自然种类的起源。幼儿通常依赖于感性的表象，只有基本的科学知识，可能不会在自然种类范畴内诱导新的信息。为了测试这种可能性，类别成员对知觉相似性的归纳任务。例如，孩子们必须决定鲨鱼是否更可能像热带鱼一样呼吸，因为两者都是鱼，或者像海豚一样，因为它们看起来很像。至少到4岁时，儿童可以使用类别来支持归纳推理，即使类别成员与外观冲突。此外，这些幼儿已经部分分离出支持类别内归纳的属性（例如，呼吸的方式）从那些实际上由感知外观（如重量）决定的。由于我们只考察了自然种类范畴，我们不知道儿童在多大程度上区分了自然种类和其他种类的范畴。儿童可能会开始假设由语言命名的类别具有自然种类的结构，并随着发展而完善这些期望。
One of the primary functions of natural kind terms (e.g., tiger, gold) is to support inductive inferences. People expect members of such categories to share important, unforeseen properties, such as internal organs and genetic structure. Moreover, inductions can be made without perceptual support: even when an object does not look much like other members of its category, and even when a property is unobservable. The present work addresses how expectations about natural kinds originate. Young children, with their usual reliance on perceptual appearances and only rudimentary scientific knowledge, might not induce new information within natural kind categories. To test this possibility, category membership was pitted against perceptual similarity in an induction task. For example, children had to decide whether a shark is more likely to breathe as a tropical fish does because both are fish, or as a dolphin does because they look alike. By at least age 4, children can use categories to support inductive inferences even when category membership conflicts with appearances. Moreover, these young children have partially separated out properties that support induction within a category (e.g., means of breathing) from those that are in fact determined by perceptual appearances (such as weight). Since we examined only natural kind categories, we do not know to what extent children have differentiated natural kinds from other sorts of categories. Children may start out assuming that categories named by language have the structure of natural kinds and with development refine these expectations.